“Pittsburgh. I’d been there. One of the most underrated cities in North America. People who’d never been there thought of it as a graveyard of abandoned steel mills, but it was a beautiful city, and it would be good to have it back.”

– Steven Brust, Lord of the Fantastic: Stories in Honor of Roger Zelazny

“A city built on rivers and bituminous coal, Pittsburgh in the ’90s has survived the boom and bust years.”

– Bill Dedman

“Pittsburgh entered the core of my heart when I was a boy and cannot be torn out.”

― Andrew Carnegie

“Pittsburgh felt like the perfect size of a city to me. There’s enough to do, but it’s not like living in a circus. I also really loved how sports-enthusiastic Pittsburgh people are: how proud of their sports they are.”

– Joel Edgerton

“The road to the Super Bowl runs through Pittsburgh, sooner or later you’ve got to go to Pittsburgh.”

— Bum Phillips

“Like most people, I have this sort of love-hate relationship with Pittsburgh. This is my home, and at times I miss it and find it tremendously exciting, and other times I want to catch the first thing out that has wheels.”

– August Wilson

“There’s so much that I like about Pittsburgh, actually. The cultural district and museums are wonderful, and I encourage everyone to check them out. And the food is excellent, too!”

– Troy Polamalu

“When I grew up in Pittsburgh in my parents’ restaurant, I was almost like a country bumpkin.”

– Ming-Na Wen

“I would always reserve a special place in my heart for Pittsburgh.”

– Willie Stargell

“I don’t ever remember having any bad times here in Pittsburgh.”

— Barry Bonds

“I love Pittsburgh because it’s a humble city. It’s really grounded in its rich history and culture.”

– Kyle Abraham

Andy Warhol was an artist, a celebrity, a cultural icon, an eccentric, and, at heart, a Pittsburgher. While most people associate Warhol with the jet set and locations like New York City and Hollywood, most fail to realize how much of a Pittsburgher he was.

Warhol on the surface may have appeared to be glitzy and glamorous, but beneath the persona, some deep Pittsburgh values remained.

Pittsburgh never forgot that Warhol was a native son. The city remembered him by renaming the Seventh Street Bridge the “Andy Warhol Bridge” in celebration of the museum’s 10th anniversary.

Pittsburgh is a blue collar, football loving town. But it is also home to one of pop culture’s most famous artists, Andy Warhol. The Andy Warhol Museum is fantastic. Whether or not you are a fan of the artist or his art, this museum is a great place to visit.

Colorado National Monument (locally referred to as “The Monument“) is a National Park Service unit near the city of Grand Junction, Colorado. Spectacular canyons cut deep into sandstone, and even granite–gneiss–schist, rock formations.

When John Otto first saw the rugged red rock canyons south of Grand Junction in 1906, it was love at first sight. The following year he wrote:

“I came here last year and found these canyons, and they feel like the heart of the world to me. I’m going to stay and build trails and promote this place, because it should be a national park.”

The area was established as Colorado National Monument on May 24, 1911. Otto was hired as the first park ranger, drawing a salary of $1 per month. For the next 16 years, he continued building and maintaining trails while living in a tent in the park.

Otto spearheaded fundraising campaigns, collected signatures for petitions, and penned newspaper editorials and endless letters to Washington politicians in support of national recognition for the ancient canyons and towering monoliths of his adopted home.

This is an area of desert land high on the Colorado Plateau, with pinion and juniper forests on the plateau.

There are magnificent views from trails and the Rim Rock Drive, which winds along the plateau.

Nearby are the Book Cliffs and the largest flat-topped mountain in the world, the Grand Mesa.

The park became more well known in the 1980s partly due to its inclusion as a stage of the major international bicycle race, the Coors Classic. The race through the park became known as “The Tour of the Moon”, due to the spectacular landscapes the race passed through on Rim Rock Drive.

Just another Dharma Bum day at the office!

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“Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.” – Ansel Adams